Glitterbug was Derek Jarman’s final film, compiled from the many hours of Super 8 footage he had shot throughout his life. Originally made in 1994 for the BBC’s Arena. arts strand, Glitterbug is a visual journal that ties together aspects of Jarman’s life from the 1970s to 1990s.
The film opens with the artist awakened by the memory of dreams, of lovers, of friends, of place - Jarman’s lofts on Bankside, Upper Ground, the Thames River; of self, shaving, washing, breakfasting - those small rituals that prepare the day, the structuring of artifice and order. The world outside, My Tea Shop, the day-time existence, Jarman’s curiosity for the world around him. Then at night another world, we see preparation for Andrew Logan’s Alternative Miss World, returning to day, a garden party, is this Andrew Logan singing as Little Nell Campbell dances? Duggie Fields watches, Jarman films.
The dreamer sleeps, travels to the country, Van Gogh fields, standing stones, the memory of place, absence of others, a white-washed cottage room, the creation of art, the structuring of order.
The dreamer awake, and we are now watching Jarman at work, Sebastiane, the sea flecked gold, the actors at play, legs entwined. An office, an apartment, ‘phone calls, then filming the artist Duggie Fields, his designs, his face, a prelude to Jubilee, a young flame-haired Toyah Willcox, The Sex Pistols, Jordan and a dress rehearsal for what will become The Last of England, as she pirouettes around a burning Union Jack, Adam Ant, hair-cutting, the Silver Jubilee.
Jarman is showing us the sketches for preparation, the themes he returned to throughout his life. Rome, ritual, the research for Caravaggio, punk, the art of mirrors, The Slits, William Burroughs, Gensis P. Orridge, Throbbing Gristle, Jarman’s fascinations and obsessions, his idols and co-conspirators. The ritual of sharing tea, sharing cigarettes, a shared communion, youthful faces, sun flecked, smiling in the sun, a future ahead, too often cut short by the frost, this the last summer they danced on the rooftop, ‘Here I am, here are my secrets,’ he is saying, as we plunder through his film diaries, Super 8 scrapbook, glittering trinket chest, memory is what makes us, what sometimes betrays us, what gives us the love we have to share, returning to the Thames, the friends, the lovers, those living, those dead.
Glitterbug Derek Jarman’s Super 8 films, with Andrew Logan, Duggie Fields, Tilda Swinton, Michael Clark, Adam Ant, Toyah Willcox, William Burroughs and Genesis P. Orridge. Music by Brian Eno, specially commissioned for this film.
This may be the coolest thing to come out of France since Francoise Hardy. Fuck Daft Punk and M83… and Plastic Bertrand. Soggy was a French heavy rock band from the early 1980s who managed to channel the spirit of MC5 and The Stooges in ways that few bands have managed to do as convincingly as these dudes. And did I mention they’re French?
Soggy was founded in 1978 on the ashes of obscure rock bands from Reims (Woman Bleed, Antechrist, Hardfuckers, ). Starting with covers of Alice Cooper, Black Sabbath, MC5, and the Stooges, the band quickly wrote its own material and developed a unique style mixing Hard Rock and Punk Rock in a Stooges vein self labeled “Hard Wave” to make fun of journalists who had labeled them “Hard Rock” and even “New Wave”. The band rehearsed regularly, recorded its own tracks on many occasions (while rehearsing and in the studio). They hired a huge technical staff, organized their own tours in the Champagne-Ardenne region, but also ventured to Paris (Gibus, Golf Drouot), and even Germany, Belgium, Holland and Switzerland.
The bands professionalism along with their legendary burst of energy on stage eventually gained media coverage in Best (october 1980) and with this came the opportunity to record the tracks “Waiting For The War” and “47 Chromosomes” in Paris (Florida studio) in April 1981. With the release of a self produced single (reaching the 5th highest sale in their regions biggest record shop) and with a video of “Waiting for the war” shot for the TV channel FR3 Reims, the end of May that year signifies the highpoint in the bands career. Approached by several major record labels for the release of a whole album, but when asked to sing in French (an offer they systematically turnED down), the band was destined to remain unsigned. After more than a hundred concerts, the band split up in July 1982, although they were supposed to play the opening act for the Judas Priest European tour.
Beb - Vocals
Eric Dars - Guitars
François Tailleur - Bass
Olivier Hennegrave - Drums
This is a prelude to a video megamix of French hard rock that I will posting in the next few days. Watch for it.
Wyatt Doyle, writer, publisher and a founding contributor to the NewTexture.com website, recently brought my attention to the new “Sex and Guts” blog, a digital resurrection of the infamous magazine. I’ll let Wyatt tell you about it:
In putting together our anthology of Chris D.’s writing, A Minute to Pray A Second to Die, I spent a lot of time tracking down his old press clips. When I asked Chris about an interview in a book called Midnight Mavericks, he clarified that it was reprinted from Sex & Guts magazine. That interview—by Gene Gregorits—turned out to be the most in-depth talk with Chris I’d read, and the rest of Gregorits’ interviews in S&G were of the same caliber. I eagerly picked up a copy of Midnight Mavericks for more.
That book, issued by the UK’s FAB Press in 2007, collected four dozen (!) interviews by Gregorits from the pages of Sex & Guts, encompassing a wide spectrum of artists in popular media whose work has placed them squarely outside the mainstream. With back issues of S&G difficult to come by, Mavericks was an easily-procured frequent recommendation I made to friends, fellow travelers and Chris D. fans who’d write in for progress reports on Minute. Midnight Mavericks was and is a cultural guidebook on par with the best of RE/Search Publications—no small achievement. This was eye-opening, mind-expanding—even inspirational—stuff.
Now Gregorits is taking his archives digital, via his new site, SNG Unexpurgated. He promises “the entirety of the Sex & Guts back catalog” over the next few weeks, all in his full, original edits (most of his work in S&G and MM was trimmed for space). He’s already posted an impressive array of profiles, including Stephen R. Bissette, Dan Fante, Patton Oswalt, John Waters, Lydia Lunch and that Chris D. interview that pulled my coat to begin with.
Though rarely short on memorable quotes, for the most part, Gregorits’ interviews are resolutely anti-soundbite—no small achievement, considering much of what passes for print interviews today. Save the glib and facile for bumper stickers; give me an interesting thinker in an expansive mood—and Gregorits on the tape recorder.”
These days we’re used to seeing public figures like Sarah Palin and Scott Walker punked, but in the early 1980s, the avenues for media hacking just did not exist the way they do now. The infamous “Thatchergate” tape—an audio collage constructed by Crass bassist Peter Wright (aka “Sybil Right” and “Pete Wrong”) of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan “talking” about nuclear weapons and the sinking of the HMS Sheffield as a deliberate attempt to escalate the conflict in the Falklands War was one of the first.
The “Thatchergate” tape was an event back then, especially in the squatter/anarcho-punk crowd that I was a part of in London at the time. To hear about Crass perpetrating the hoax of Ronald Reagan getting “caught on tape” threatening to nuke Europe (to show Russia who was boss!) was nothing short of a blow against Moloch!
Today, there are a little more than 2000 items that come up on Google for “Thatchergate” and most have nothing to do with Crass. This story should be a lot better known, it’s one of the greatest pranks in history:
From San Francisco Chronicle, January 30, 1983.
Washington. A fake tape of a purported conversation between President Reagan and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was circulated in Europe this spring, possibly by the KGB, the State Department said yesterday.
“This type of activity fits the pattern of fabrications circulated by the Soviet KGB, although usually they involve fake documents rather than tapes,” the department said in a written response to reporter’s questions.
The department said that although the recording is of “poor quality,” a technical analysis revealed that the voices were those of Reagan and Thatcher.
But the department indicated the voices were spliced together and said they were not part of an actual conversation.
“We checked with the White House, which advised thay no such conversation took place,” the department said.
The President’s part in the recording apparently was lifted from his Nov. 22, 1982 speech on nuclear disarmament,” it said. “We are not sure where Mrs. Thatcher’s remarks came from.
The department said a copy of the tape was received by the U.S. embassy in the Netherlands a week before the British elections.
The tape dealt with the Falklands crisis and U.S. missiles in Britain, the department said.
It said, “From the drift of the tape, the evident purpose was to cause problems for Mrs. Thatcher by blaming her for the sinking of the British destroyer Sheffield and also for us by stirring trouble on the INF (Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces) issue.”
The Sheffield was sunk by Argentine forces last year during the war with Britain over the Falkland Islands.
Britain and the United Staes took part in a NATO decision to install intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Europe late this year as a counter to similar Soviet forces if an agreement on restriction such weapons is not reached.
The State Department said the tape-recording was sent with a covering letter from an anonymous person to Dutch journalists.
It is said an analysis by the language experts “suggests that the author was not a native speaker.”
The Reagan administration has contended for some time that the KGB has contended for some thime that the KGB has a forgery factory producing false documents to mislead target audiences.
It was also written up in The Sunday Times, on January 8, 1983
How the KGB fools the West’s press.
THE TAPE is heavy with static and puntuated with strange noises, but through it all can be heard the authentic voices of Ronald Reagan on the telephone: “If there is a conflict we shall fire missiles at our allies to see to it that the Soviet Union stays within its borders.”
At the other end of the telephone is Mrs. Thatcher. “You mean Germany?” she asks increduously.
“Mrs. Thatcher, if any country endagers our position we can decide to bomb the problem area and so remove the instability.”
If this is not hair-raising enough, we hear Mrs. Thatcher virtually admitting that she had the Belgrano sunk to end any chance of an agreement with Argentina. “Oh God!” says Reagan.
The whole conversation is fake. Both voices are real but the words spoken have been doctored, cut, rearranged and then expanded on the transcript of the tape. Every word from Reagan is extracted from his lengthy presidential address on nuclear strategy. When, for instance, he seems to swear at Mrs. Thatcher, he is in fact coming to the end of his speech and quoting a hymn: “Oh God of love, O king of peace.”
The tape surfaced in Holland just before last year’s British general election, but it never quite overcame the suspicions of Dutch journalists. They declined to publish the juicy exclusive, sent to them anonymously. But other journalists across the world have fallen for an increasing flow of such stories based on “authoritative” cables, memo and tapes. The State Department in Washington says they are all products of an increasingly sophisicated Russian campaign.
“They have accelerated their efforts and they have fine-tuned them,” claims Larry Semakis, deputy director of a State Department team that monitors what the Russians call “active measures.” He admits that “no one can specifically prove in a court of law that Soviet hand was on this or that item.” But he says there is a pattern in the use of forgeries which points unmistakably to the Russians.
The State Department believes that “active measures” are the responsibility of the KGB’s first directorate; that some forgeries go as high as the ruling Politburo for approval…
“[W]hich points unmistakably to the Russians”? I don’t think so…
Then one year later in The Observer newspaper on, Sunday, January 22, 1984, it was revealed that…
‘Soviet’ faked tape is rock group hoax
A TAPE recording, purporting to carry details of a secret telephone conversation between Mrs Thatcher and President Reagan, has been revealed as a hoax manufactured deliberately by an anarchist rock group.
The recording was taken to newspapers throughout Europe—including The Observer—but, apart from one Italian newspaper, nobody had been taken in by the hoax tape until it appeared in the Sunday Times earlier this month.
That newspaper described it as part of a KGB propaganda war. Unfortunately the tape was recorded not in Moscow but in an Essex farmhouse.
The New York correspondent of the paper reported that the State Department believed the tape was evidence of ‘an increasingly sophisticated Russian disinformation cam- paign.’
The real authors of the hoax tape, the anarchist punk rock group Crass, said that they had been ‘amused and amazed’ that the tape had been attributed to the KGB.
The recording first appeared in the offices of a number of Continental newspapers shortly before the British general election last year.
A covering note said it was a recording of a crossed line on which was heard part of the two leaders’ telephone conversation, and that the person who sent it wished to remain anonymous for fear of retribution.
Key lines in the tape include Mr. Reagan apparently asking why the Belgrano was sunk during the Fallrlands war, when Secretary of State Haig was nearing a peace agreement. Mrs Thatcher appears to reply: ‘Argentina was the invader. Force had to be used now, punishing them as quickly as possible.’
Mr. Reagan then says: ‘Oh God, it is not right. You caused the Sheffield to have been hit. Those missiles we followed on the screen. You must have, too, and not let them know.’
Later, in a discussion on nuclear strategy, Mr. Reagan is made to say: ‘If there is a conflict we shall fire missiles at our allies to see to it that the Soviet Union stays within its borders.’
The tape was first brought to The Observer by a Belgian journalist last June. We concluded, like most of the other newspapers, that it was a fake.
The quest for the real hand behind the tape led to an isolated farmhouse in north Essex, where the eight members of the band live with their children.
Reluctantly the members of the band, who sport names like Joy Be Vivre, G Sus and Sybil Right, admitted faking the tape. They showed how they had put it together over two and a half months, using parts of TV and radio broadcasts made by the two leaders, then overdubbing with telephone noises.
‘We wanted to precipitate a debate on those subjects to damage Mrs. Thatcher’s position in the election. We also did it because of the appaling way Tam Dalyell was treated over the Belgrano debate,’ they said.
‘We believe that although the tape is a hoax, what is said in it is in effect true.’
And there was more: From The Associated Press, Sunday, January 25, 1984
And still more…
Crass ‘KGB tape’ hoax (Sounds, January 28, 1984)
CRASS have been uncovered as the perpetrators of a bogus tape of a telephone ‘conversation’ between Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher.
The tape was originally circulated last sammer before the General Election and was claimed to be a recording of a crossed line between the two leaders. Needless to say it is not complimentary to either statesperson.
During the coarse of the ‘conversation’ Thatcher replies to Reagan’s question about the Belgrano by saying: “Argentina was the invader. Force had to be used now, punishing them as quickly as possible.”
And later in a discussion aboat nuclear strategy Reagan says: “If there is any conflict we a shall fire missiles at our allies to see to it that the Soviet Union stays with stays within its borders.”
Most newspapers recognised the tape as a fake but the Sunday Times attributed it to KGB propaganda a couple of weeks ago and last Sunday’s Observer took considerable delight in tracking the tape back to Crass’s HQ in Essex.
Invoking the spirit of one of Reagan’s predecessors, George Washington, they explained that the tape had been put together from TV and radio broadcasts overdubbed by telephone noises.
They justified their actions by saying: “We wanted to precipitate a debate on the Falklands and nuclear weapons to damage: Thatcher’s position in the election. We also did it because of the appalling way Tom Dalyell (almost the only MP to raise any awkward questions over the Falklands affair) was treated over the Belgrano debate in the House of Commons.
I recall hearing at the time that Jane Pauley did a story on this on The Today Show in the US, but can find no record of that online, sadly… To this day, the members of Crass have never been able to figure out how the tape was traced back to them.
Pretty much there are only two ways to hear the “Thatchergate” tape: In the Crass song, “Powerless with a Guitar” you can hear a bit of it. It was also included at the end of a “God Told Me to Do It” mix by David Tibet which you can download at the excellent Kill Your Pet Puppy blog (where I got most of this information from and has audio interviews about “Thatchergate”). Since it’s not ideal listening—the conceit was that it was recorded due to crossed wires, so there is a ringing phone noise throughout (a nice touch)—here’s a transcript of the “Thatchergate” tape in full:
Thatcher: Own business!
Reagan. I urge restraint. It’s absolutely essential or the area ‘be “through the roof”.
Thatcher: Look, our objectives are fundamentally different. Al Haig…
Reagan: Secretary Haig….
Thatcher:. Doesn’t seem to be able to find a solution.
Reagan: Why eliminate “Belgrano”? You directed this. The Argentinians were then going…. Secretary Haig reached an agreement.
Thatcher: Argentina was the invader! Force has been used. It’s been used now, punishing them as quickly as possible.
Reagan: Oh, God, it’s not right! You caused the “Sheffield” to have been hit. Those missiles we followed on screens. You must have too, and not let them know. What do you hope to gain?
Thatcher: What I said before -“Andrew”- ....As “cruise” go in, I want incentives at all levels….
Reagan: There’s a deal….a third more submarine ballistic missiles, and you will see that the United States forces remain deployed. The intermediate range missiles are U.S. defence. You proposed building them in Europe. Build up the economy. They don’t work, they’re social programmes…. The United Kingdom is a….er….little nation….
Thatcher: You still need those nations, and you’re given long term international markets.
Reagan: We are supported by our allies, whether they want, or not.
Thatcher: I, I don’t understand you….
Reagan: In conflict, we will launch missiles on allies for effective limitation of the Soviet Union.
Thatcher: ‘Mean over Germany?
Reagan: Mrs Thatcher, if any country of ours endangered the position, we might bomb the “problem area”, and correct the imbalance.
Thatcher: See, my….
Reagan: It will convince the Soviets to listen. We demonstrate our strength….The Soviets have little incentive to launch an attack.
Broadcast on UK Channel 4 in 2001, Top Ten: X-Rated looks at the banning of rock and rap songs and videos on radio and TV. Hosted, appropriately, by a snarling John Lydon.
Ironically, the documentary itself was not banned despite been chock full of nasty bits - thanks to the progressive programming at Channel 4
Among the banned: Scott Walker, 2 Live Crew, The Prodigy, Marilyn Manson, Ian Dury & The Blockheads, The Sex Pistols, Ice T, N.W.A, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Kool Keith, Serge Gainsbourg & Jane Birkin and The Pogues.
Joey and Dee Dee Ramone appear with their artistic director Arturo Vega and longtime buddy Michael Mckenzie on Efrom Allen’s Underground TV program in 1978.
This is classic Manhattan public access; chaotic, anarchic and fun. I used to call this cocaine TV because I was generally zooted to the gills when I was watching it. This show is particularly good. Instead of the usual assholes that would call in to insult the artists that were being interviewed, the callers on this night seem genuinely curious about The Ramones and the scene revolving around CBGB. This was a time when something very fresh and unpredictable was happening in the downtown clubs and the bands and their audiences were all discovering it together. Even the cynics were starting to pay attention.
Along with Robin Byrd and Al Goldstein, Efrom Allen was one of the pioneers of NYC cable TV talk shows. With its mix of porn stars, punk rockers and nightlife impresarios, Underground TV was always reliably weird entertainment on those nights when you just wanted to stay home and get fucked up.
Minutemen unplugged on Los Angeles public access TV, 1985. The band’s stripped-down, percussive sound, gets into some sinuous grooves in this soulful acoustic set.
Setlist: The Meter Man/Corona/Themselves/The Red And The Black/Badges/
I Felt Like Gringo/Time/Green River/Lost/Ack Ack Ack/Ain’t Talkin’ Bout Love/
History Lesson Part II/Tour Spiel/Little Man With A Gun In His Hand
Scott Walker, thy name is fucked. You’re going to go down in history, just not the way you thought you would, pal! People of Wisconsin, you have made all of us proud!
The Wisconsin Democratic Party was quick to dub the recall effort — which also targeted Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch and a handful of Republican state legislators — the “biggest” in American history, and boasted that organizers had gathered a whopping 460,000 extra signatures for the recall of Walker, who infuriated many in his state last year by pushing through a law that ended most collective bargaining rights for many public workers.
Meagan Mahaffey, executive director of United Wisconsin – the group behind the recall efforts – told POLITICO that Tuesday’s results sent a “crystal clear message to Scott Walker that voters are done with his extreme policies and his destruction that he’s doing to our state.”
Unions were poised to emerge as some of the biggest winners from Tuesday’s news, but Mahaffey insisted that the movement did not simply represent a battle between Walker and organized labor.
“This is a message to people of all backgrounds and all different types of peope that have worked so hard on this recall. The best outcome for all of us is the same: Recall Scott Walker,” she said.
As the months-long recall campaign had neared its end, State Democratic Party Chairman Mike Tate had predicted Tuesday’s outcome earlier this week, telling POLITICO he was confident that the final tally would “hit or exceed” their goal of 720,000 signatures and saying the message he hoped would resonate with Wisconsin voters was that “help is on the way.”
“An incredible number of Wisconsinites have stood up to be counted and say, ‘We can’t wait for the next election. We absolutely must get Scott Walker out of office right now,’” said Tate.
Walker himself signaled that he expected his opponents would be able to achieve their goal.
Speaking at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C., earlier this month, the embattled governor predicted that a recall election will indeed occur sometime in June.
But Walker stood by his controversial reforms, maintaining that they were all made “for the right reasons.”
“You either get elected to be somebody great or do something great, and I always tell kids to do the latter,” he said.
What are you going to tell your kids now, shithead?
Footage shot somewhere in Canada (Toronto?) for Much Music TV in 1981 features a pissed-off Iggy Pop talking trash with a male heckler in the audience.
“You have tits. You have tits. You have little tiny tits with little pink nipples.”
“Fuck Bowie. You’d like to wouldn’t you?”
“You’re a pecker from the woods.”
Pop instructs the film crew to turn their cameras off and the screen goes blank.
